Some people hate a cappella and I can understand why. When I walk around Smith's campus, odds are I am with someone else from my group and we are singing. Obnoxiously. Again, understandable why that would get on someone's nerves and make them hate everything about the a cappella world. But the random outbursts of singing lay at the surface of it. There's so much more that comes together to create our music. I never really understood what made it all so special until now.

This is the first and only year I will be the musical director of my group, The Noteables, and I can honestly say I have never grown as much as a person as I have in the past three months. The music part is easy. I can arrange songs in my sleep, and trust me, I do. Music literally never stops playing in my head. Because of this, I thought I was ready to lead an entire group of people. But the truth is, there is so much that I don't know about being an effective leader.

Five of my closest friends in the group graduated last spring. They were, what I knew to be, the core of the group. Dena, the previous musical director and my beloved friend, was The Noteables to me. So without her, without everything I used to know, I started the year off trying to create that same atmosphere, that same group. But by doing that, I blinded myself to the possibility of making something new. This blindness is slowly coming undone, but only because of my fellow members and friends.

The twelve other members of The Noteables are incredible human beings. Each one with different music styles, goals, and with different ways of thinking about life. Whether it's about social justice from Hana, broadway shows I never would have heard of otherwise from Phoebe (Pherb), or various "Star Wars" movie plots from Mackenzie, I learn something new from them everyday. These are the people that make this group special. They add something to it, a spark of themselves, to create The Noteables. Their individualities inspire me to want to make something new, too. They remind me that it's okay for things to change and that it's okay to do things differently. Life is ever-changing. There are endless types of cycles, like seasons, fashion trends, and school years. These wonderful people remind me that group dynamic is an ever-changing cycle, too.

What makes a cappella special is not the music or the performance. It is the way aspiring, dreaming human beings can come together and create something. Whether we're making music or a safe and positive environment for us to exist in, there is magic. There is magic in the way we learn from each other and thrive off of each other. There is magic in the way our voices, all unique in their own ways, blend together to make our sound. The Noteables make me want to be better. This is what makes us special. This is what defines us.

I am so grateful to The Noteables for teaching me that change is good. They are the one's guiding me on the journey to finding out who we are and who we want to be. We are individual lights and energies coming together as we transform into something brighter, something new. That is magical to me.